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Why claims about genetic differences between groups are almost always misinterpreted

Nicole Kleman, Meng Lin, Christopher R. Gignoux, Arslan A. Zaidi

May 22, 2026

Different populations have different disease rates and allele frequencies, but these don't prove genetic differences—they could just reflect population structure, biased studies, or measurement error. Both major statistical approaches (ancestry-based and polygenic score comparisons) fail to distinguish real genetic effects from statistical artifacts. The authors argue we should nearly always doubt claims that genetic risk differs meaningfully between groups.
Published as Tread lightly interpreting group differences in genetic risk arXiv:2605.23164
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